This morning the world is covered in dust—thin curtain of yellowish resin settling on everything.I see it falling to the earth in the shadowsof the hundred-year-old oak across the street,I see it everywhere as I pedal my bike to work,dust hanging in between houses and spillingonto front yards. It looks as if someone appliedone of those filters, the kind that makes photographslook vintage or a little more worn. How concernedshould we all be with false spring? Birds arrivingready to eat and breed, only the plants are long gone.Do we not dance anyway, giddy, in spite of ourselves? I wonder if knowing better matters in the end, but this isn’t the end—here’s a cardinal, here’s a man sanding the hood of a rusted out convertiblein front of his storage space. Here’s the copper yardwhere three dogs used to be chained outsidein a circular fence with one dog shack for shelter. How I hated their bitter chorus of barking, but todayis silent and I tell myself they aren’t dead, only rescued. Who doesn’t feel regret or shame about the past?Here’s spring, here’s my birthday, here’s to another yearand another in which I wake up and see moreof myself than I sometimes care to. I lockmy bike to a metal handrail and blink back focus—and when I say the dust disappears, which is exactlylike recognizing forgiveness—I know I am here.

_____________________________________________________________

Sarah McCall worked for many years as both English teacher and bartender, and is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Old Dominion University. Her work has appeared in various journals including Whurk, Barely South Review, Jet Fuel Review, Cargo Literary, and Fields Magazine. She and her husband and their two dogs live in Norfolk, VA.